Excel and HC works great.
I know several folks that have done that.
I grow HC 3 ways:

This way with no water
CO2
And non CO2 at the lab in tubs.

I started another 2 small 3 gallon nano tanks using some HC from the first tank.
I have them going already even after a few days.

I am sloping the ADA AS at about a 30degree angle to see how that might affect growth.

Seems to be fine thus far.

I may try this start up method on a 50 gallon cube to see the potential through to the very end product.

I saw some nice little round HC pots with rocks on AquaticQuoient recently.
Nice little terrarium style herb gardens etc.
If you have not gone to the forum there, it's quite nice and the group is pretty active.

Mainly folks living in Singapore.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Tom, since I have a question about HC I’ll ask it here hope you don’t mind. Would HC grow in a brackish environment, well, not exactly brackish in its truest form but very, very, very slightly salted water, enough so that a school of bumble bee goby would be content? How about in an aquarium with a pH of about 7.5?

No, not well at all.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Here's a few pics:

Before:



Planted,



After 4 weeks:



Now you add water, CO2(or excel), and maybe a little ferts.


Regards,
Tom Barr

Question: When you start submerging it to water, will its immersed form melt down and start growing to submerged form?

If you add enough CO2, no, why would it?
Gas exchange is the only change when you submersed it, and if you add enough CO2 to compensate, there should not be any melt.

Plants melt when submersed namely due to gas exchange differences.
Some folks might not like the look of say H difformis emergent leaves, but those tend not to die with decent CO2.


Regards,
Tom Barr

Oh...but it will eventually change into its submersed form? I thought the transition from immersed to submersed will always go through some meltdown. That's what keeps me from trying this. I was often told that a tank with plants raised immersed, when filled with water will be like a 'new' tank. I thought plants will eventually melt and turn into its submersed form. I guess what I believed was wrong.

Is the same thing with crypt melts on new tanks? Is it also caused by lack of c02?

Many thanks for clearing this up. Can't wait to get try HC now.

Hey,
Meand my friend are planning to take on tis method of setting up a tank. But we are not aware as to which species are suitable for it.
We are planning a whole setup with emersed species, if we could know which species wecould try it would be great!
The tank is about 8 gallons. And we are looking for a setup full of tall stem plants on a thick carpet of grass. (i cud not find HC here, so we'll have to try some other species.)

Thanks and Regards
Mohit

I had been wondering about trying this too - growing the whole tank of emersed plants, stem plants, carpet plants, etc. all at once. But, Tom didn't recommend that. I can see reasons for not doing it. Stem plants need water to support them as they grow upwards, where carpet plants don't grow upwards, but spread horizontally. Emersed forms of stem plants are usually radically different from submersed forms, where carpet plants are not much different in the two forms. And, the growth rates would be different, so the stems might be ready long before the carpet was ready or vice versa. So, I gave up the idea.

hmm...so wot carpetplants can we try it out with?

for us only the following species are readily available,
java moss
dwarf hairgrass
pygmy chain sword
riccia.

i would want to avoid very demanding plants in terms of light and nutrition because i want to keep the tank setup as natural as possible.